Why no open source Flex?
I mean the swf format is
open. The tools are their. Merging components, creating Actionscript components
It`s all doable and there
is nothing magical about flex. In fact I think that a flex like system is just
the
next logical step for
flash development. All this “we need to get the enterprise developers”
on board is
just shareholder talk.
Flash developers have for a long time pushed the limits of flash and i`m sure
that
it`s possible to built
something like flex as open source. You would say there is Laszlo but for me
it`s not an alternative. I
want something compatible to flex and that uses actionscript and that
recognizes my
components built in flash.
So I want flex for free!
Don`t get me wrong. I
love Flex. It`s a great product but in my opinion there is enough space for an
open source
Project that fits for
smaller (budget wise) projects.
For my final thesis i`m
working on such a project. I have successfully built a Linker/Loader System and
an
MXML parser. (I will
post about the progression here www.richapps.de
)
I think a real open
source Flex alternative would be great even for Flex itself. It is the only
way to win against the
xaml, xul whatever rivals.
My2Cents
Benz
Von:
Simon Fifield [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 31. März
2005 23:15
An: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
Betreff: RE: [flexcoders] Flex 1.5
price
I will need to speak to
my clients ( I can't remember if they purchased the Flex License at v1 or v1.5
).
I'm sure that there is an
amicable agreement that can be reached - price increases are an ongoing problem
for everyone around the world but particularly for the small to medium
whoever/whatever. Although larger companies must be careful to count the
pennies (therefore looking after the pounds) they are in a much better position
to find the cash to make larger purchases if it makes sense in the bigger
picture.
I imagine ( and I may be
wrong ) that most of us are a little disturbed by not being able to see a price
on a tag. Hardly anyone in the UK
is used to haggling, and personally I'm not keen on squeezing as much out of
someone as I can. I am not the one who authorises purchases, and I imagine that
most of us here are in the same boat.
It just feels very
uncomfortable seeing a price tag for a small bag of sweets, a price tag for a
large bag of sweets, but for medium and jumbo bags you have to haggle with the
shop keeper. I'm not saying its wrong - I just think that lots of developers
like me have a hard time having to go back to the people who make the
purchasing decisions and trying to get them to pay an unknown but considerable
amount of money for something that they are not sure that they want, and we are
the ones that have to persuade them that they want it.
For my part, I sold Flex
based on the knowledge that my clients wanted to develop their webapps using
the Flash Player. My experience of creating webapps in the Flash environment
was most unpleasant (especially when having to work with designers that
can't program and aren't at all tidy!) so I pushed the fact that the webapps
would be developed much much faster using Flex than with Flash. Yes, there
has been a bigger learning curve than I thought, but if I had tried to do this
using Flash only - well I think that I would be in a hospital room with nice padded
walls to dampen the sound of my screaming!
I love Flex. And I'm
glad someone else has bought it for me to work with.
-----Original
Message-----
From: Lucian Beebe
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 31 March 2005 21:17
To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [flexcoders] Flex 1.5
price
Maintenance will be
calculated based on the CPUs or Quick Start price if you go that route. . I
think that’s pretty consistent with other software industry norms.
I’ll make you the same
offer, Simon. Where you have serious projects running, lets talk directly and
find a way to make this work out.
Lucian
From:
Simon Fifield [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2005
11:49 AM
To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [flexcoders] Flex 1.5
price
My clients have also
stretched themselves to purchase the 2cpu license, which cost more than
the Dual Processor server they purchased to match the spec.
Now that the license for
Flex is either 1 or 4 cpu does this mean that my clients are going to have to
more than double the original purchase price when they need to renew their
maintenance license?
Or will the 1 cpu license
cover the whole server? (i.e. does cpu mean server or does it mean processors?)
-----Original
Message-----
From: Matthew Shirey
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 31 March 2005 18:17
To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [flexcoders] Flex 1.5
price
What about a 2cpu
license? Please answer. Your 'starter kit' is
overkill for us. If our price is based on a
minimum 4cpu price, then
this is no longer a joke at all. We will
have to drop Flex and never
look back. We will have wasted months of
training and actual
development time. This is NOT a price I can
justify to anyone.
We're seriously disappointed in Macromedia at this
time. We're a very
small shop and its starting to look like
Macromedia does not care
about the little guy at all anymore.
-- Matthew
On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 12:00:13 -0500, Darron J.
Schall
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Jeff Steiner wrote:
>
> >Lazslo, while the samples look great, is
still based upon Flash player 5
> >(Beta 3 of Lazslo is player 6). It
is one of those things where you have to
> >wonder - how does Lazslo know what to
extend of the Flash Player. The
> >people that are contributing to it make
guesses and try to extend the
> >capabilities as far as they can, but they
are still limited in their
> >knowledge. I have never seen an API
to the Flash player made readily
> >available to the public. Also - as
the Flash Player gets more complicated
> >it will become more difficult to code
hooks into the player to give
> >developers the same functionality that is
provided by Flex, and Breeze, and
> >Flash, ........
> >
> >
> As a Flash developer, I'd like to chime in
here..
>
> The fact that Lazslo works on Flash Player 5
really isn't an issue. In
> fact, I'd say it's a bonus! Here's why:
>
> * Because Lazslo outputs to Flash Player 5,
it has a larget target
> audience. See the penetration stats:
> http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html
> -- FP 5 is 97%. FP7 is 82% - so apps
created in Laszlo have a better
> chance of being viewed
>
> * There are no "older is slower"
arguments. The v7 player will play a
> v5 swf faster than the v5 player, because the
v7 player itself is faster
> than the v5 player.
>
> * The internals are abstracted away.
Right now your Lazslo code
> publishes to .swf, but it's not tied to the
Flash Player in any way -
> there are no MovieClip references, etc in
your lazslo code. In fact,
> you don't even use ActionScript, you write in
_javascript_. There's
> nothing to stop someone from writing a new
"player" and with a few
> tweaks to the Laszlo compilation process you
could have output for that
> new player.
>
> When you develop an application, do you
really care about the internal
> API calls of Flash Player 7? If I'm a
Lazslo developer, I say no.. I
> know what tags I can use in my markup, I know
what the APIs are, and I
> use them and get a *working* .swf file.
As long as it works, that's all
> I care about. If SWF5 is all it takes
to make it work, then that's cool.
>
> Is there anything in v7 SWF that would
benefit Lazslo apps? Not
> really. Some of the new things added in
FP 7 over FP 6 is case
> sensitivty, depth management functions
(getNextHighestDepth..) , context
> menu, etc,. The biggest change would
probably be embedded video, and
> that may be a show stopper for some.. but
it's rare that an
> "application" needs video in
it. FP 6 adds some things over FP5 like
> ShardObjects, so I can see how upgrading to
v6 in that respect would be
> benefitical. FP 6 also added different
event handlers than FP5
> (.onPress, vs on (press)) - but that has 0
effect on how I code my
> Lazslo markup. The FP6 style event
handlers are meant to make AS coding
> easier, but Lazslo doesn't care about that
because it has it's own
> coding model.
>
> The fact that Lazslo accomplishes what it
does on an old version of the
> SWF format is not a drawback, it's a
benefit. There's really no reason
> to use SWF7 if everything you need to do can
be accomplished in SWF5.
> The fact that Lazslo separates itself from
the Flash Player is another
> benefit as well.. If something should
ever happen, maybe legal issues
> or whatever, Lazslo can output to, say, Java
applets or whatever, since
> the code is all abstracted from the VM and
the compilation process
> handles the dirty work of putting your code
into a format the VM can
> understand.
>
> -d
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
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